6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

We believe that the driving test is an archaic system that's desperately in need of an update. Here are six things that we were taught during our lessons that turned out to be completely pointless...
6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

1. 'Feeding' the wheel

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

The ‘pull-push’ method, also known as ‘feeding the wheel’, is argubly the most important ‘driving test’ technique. It’s a method that has been taught for years; even the police force use it when training Class 1 drivers. The idea behind the technique is that it allows you to keep both hands on the wheel at all times, therefore making you a ‘safer’ driver.

Unfortunately, this is nothing more than ill-advised rhetoric. Feeding the wheel is inefficient, outdated and in some circumstances, it can be dangerous. For example, imagine that you’re on a country road and you approach a blind corner. You enter what you think is a shallow bend, but as you turn in, the corner starts to decrease in radius. To avoid running wide, you need to add more steering lock quickly but smoothly; something you can’t do effectively when feeding the wheel.

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

If you attempt to ‘pull and push’ the wheel, you’ll end up making jagged inputs at a point where the car is already unstable. And if the corner continues to tighten, the push and pull technique will be too slow, and you’ll end up running wide.

Instead, if you keep both hands on the wheel and cross your arms, you maintain that vital connection with the wheel. You can feel what the front end is doing and you can add steering input progressively. There’s a reason why ARDS qualified racing instructors ask first time track drivers to keep their hands at nine and three.

2. Constantly applying the hand-brake

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

The handbrake is your best friend on the driving test. Almost every time you stop, you’re required to use it; even after the emergency stop! Thankfully, most drivers come to their senses and drop this ‘bad habit’ once they’ve passed their test.

In reality, there’s no need to handbrake every time you come to a halt. For example, if you’re in stop-start traffic, the foot brake will usually suffice. And if you need to make an emergency stop in a pile-up situation, the last thing you should do is apply the handbrake. Once stopped you should check your mirrors, put the car in gear and pull over to the side.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not saying that you should never use it, but you don’t need to apply it every time you stop.

3. Checking your mirrors at pre-determined intervals

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

Every time you set off you should theoretically conduct a six-point check. The process goes (in the UK): look over your left shoulder, check your left exterior mirror, check your rear-view mirror, check the road ahead, check your right mirror and then finally look over your right shoulder. On your test you need to make these checks look super obvious to avoid incurring any minor penalties.

Our problem with this technique is the fact that it turns situational ‘awareness’ into a box-ticking exercise. And as we all know, when you do something simply for the sake of it (in this case, pleasing an instructor), the process ceases to have a meaningful effect.

4. Don't flash other road users

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

The Highway Code states that you should ‘only flash your headlights to let other road users know that you are there. Do not flash your headlights to convey any other messages’. As a result, you cannot flash your headlights on your driving test, and you cannot react to someone else flashing their lights at you. Now, we understand that in some circumstances this form of communication has the potential to be hazardous, but in most cases we find it to be rather helpful.

Flashing people to say thank you or to let them into a line of traffic is a daily occurrence for most of us. And whatever you might have been told, flashing your lights in the UK is not illegal.

5. Speed is the enemy (it's actually your friend)

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

Controversially, the driving test in the UK fails to incorporate any form of motorway driving. The majority of your lessons will take place in busy towns or cities where your maximum speed will be limited to 30mph. As a result, young drivers often view speed as the enemy. This isn’t a major problem on crowded streets, but it can play havoc when it comes to driving on motorways.

When merging onto a faster road, it’s vital that you accelerate to match the speed of the adjacent traffic. Unfortunately, learner drivers often get intimidated and slow down on on-ramps. Not only is this dangerous to the learner driver, but it’s also dangerous to drivers travelling at high speed on the main road. If only they knew that mashing the loud pedal is actually safer.

6. Constantly checking your speed

6 Things To Unlearn From Your Driving Test

Speeding during your driving test can result in instant failure. As a result, most learners spend the majority of their assessment staring at the speedometer. This is because the test is nothing more than a box-ticking exercise: as long as you’re under the limit, you’re deemed to be safe.

Unfortunately, this is not the case. If you’re doing the speed limit, but not focusing on the road ahead, this is equally (if not more) dangerous than speeding. Thankfully, the more you drive, the more accustomed you become to multi-tasking (checking speed, road conditions and surrounding traffic).

Finally, we want to know from you guys, what pointless things were you told during your driving lessons? Let us know in the comments below!

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Comments

MDKSuperCars

Or for Audi drivers: Use your indicators

04/25/2016 - 17:26 |
14 | 14

Naaa… that’s BMW’S

04/25/2016 - 17:41 |
28 | 2

You meant to say BMW ;)

04/25/2016 - 17:51 |
0 | 0

Audi drivers tailgate always, but at least they use blinkers :D

04/25/2016 - 18:42 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

The motorcycle test in the US says to lay down the bike when you get into a potentially dangerous situation, but the better option is to always know your out (plan b) if a situation comes

04/25/2016 - 17:29 |
28 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Sometimes laying your bike down is your only out. btw the tests and learners course always stress a way out or plan b first and foremost laying down your bike is a last resort. .

04/26/2016 - 06:16 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

It is illegal to burn out in the US and we had a whole day in drivers ed talking about dangerous things like burnouts, rapid acceleration, and drifting. That needs to be thrown out! How am I supposed to show the sti in the next lane I’m better if I can’t burnout or scream through the gears

04/25/2016 - 17:31 |
644 | 12
Scott Duncan

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

But while you’re doing burnouts the STI will have ready won!

04/25/2016 - 18:55 |
156 | 8
Antiprius

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Burnouts are illegal in the US??? But…I thought…freedom…NOOOOOOO
Also, if you have the car control skills to do things like drifting, that actually makes you a better driver.

04/25/2016 - 18:55 |
78 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Ahh America, the place where smoking dangerous substances is legal yet having a quick bit of fun isn’t…

04/26/2016 - 20:00 |
2 | 0
UAutoKnow

Over here in Canada, Michael Schumacher was once asked how he would improve the Canadian driving regulations. His answer was to raise all the speed limits, as drivers drive far to slow, and there is no NEED to pay attention to the road, agreeing completely with #5

04/25/2016 - 17:39 |
92 | 0

I’ve yet to do a driving test but I see where he’s coming from & agree with him.

04/25/2016 - 17:50 |
4 | 0

Thats actually true. After driving twice the UK motorway speed limit on German autobahns I realised that I am much more focused on driving.
Not only that you are more focused when cruising at higher speeds, but you also get to your destination quicker and therefore don’t get as tired.
However, I still think that you can’t just raise the speed limits. They should also address driving standards and MOT requirements. There are so many people who can’t drive safely and look after their cars and what you don’t wanna see is a douche driving 150mph in a car which wasn’t designed to go as fast on tyres which are 15 yrs old.

04/25/2016 - 21:53 |
28 | 2

i agree, at least all 400 series highways. minimal 10k bump. but i would keep school zones at 40 as our children are taught less and less about road crossing safety. actually. come to think of it. lets make school zones 80kph zones.

04/25/2016 - 23:12 |
16 | 0

Agreed. Canadian motorways are way too slow. Which is why I like America just a tiny bit better. You can go 90 in alot of states (ahem Arizona) and no-one would look at you like WTF because everyone does it.

04/27/2016 - 08:25 |
2 | 0
Martin Burns

I don’t know how it works in Europe but in the United States if you pass a cop on the side of the road and you don’t flash other drivers ahead to warn them, you are a BAD driver! Also can somebody please explain to me why on earth somebody thought teaching people to use the hand brake at every stop was a good idea? that’s madness what possible advantage does it have especially if y’all are strict about keeping both hand on the wheel (which i think is a good idea too) kinda contradictory no?

04/25/2016 - 17:43 |
44 | 2

Quite

04/25/2016 - 17:48 |
2 | 0

if you see a police car on the side of the road in the netherlands and you warn oncoming traffic and the police sees it you get a massive ticket

04/25/2016 - 18:04 |
58 | 0

Curtesy of the French Police. You should watch it. It’s easy to get even without knowing the language !

https://youtu.be/VNsVZu-2IaA

04/25/2016 - 18:24 |
6 | 0

during my driving lessons i used my hand brake only once

04/25/2016 - 18:27 |
0 | 0

Why you need to warn people about cops? Is everyone criminal? No. People CAN use their own eyes. Spotting cops shouldn’t be that hard.
Unless you have -4.50 eye vision xD

04/25/2016 - 18:45 |
2 | 10
Anonymous

Looking over your right/left shoulder everytime you turn at a junction because their might be a bycicle next to you (which is quite impossible when driving 50kph before turning) some situations require that (for instance with a lot of traffic or when at a complete standstill but not allways)

04/25/2016 - 17:47 |
14 | 2
Anonymous

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

I got dinged for that one. Tester said “you didn’t shoulder check before turning right” I responded with “I just drove a km down a road with no one on it, why would there be someone 3 seconds after i stopped”. Didn’t go over well.

04/25/2016 - 22:22 |
16 | 0
Anonymous

[DELETED]

04/25/2016 - 17:47 |
0 | 0
Samael

On No.2: My instructor never made me to do this, maybe the teaching techniques in germany are different what brings me to…
No.5: In Germany you HAVE to drive on the motorway/autobahn/highway/whatever while learning. You also have to drive at night.
Also in my opinion low speeds get you bored or inattentive. For example where I have lived we had a completely straight motorway-like road with two lanes in every direction and no speed limit. Because of several accidents a speed limit of 120km/h was put on the whole road. Ironically that actually made it worse because the drivers did pay even less attention to the road than before. At least once a month there is a major crash and several people already have died.

04/25/2016 - 17:48 |
4 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Samael

Wow

04/25/2016 - 17:48 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

In reply to by Samael

The stupid thing about UK is that you can only do 70kmh while on learner’s licence as well as a year after passing your test because of “lack of motorway experience”. Well how are you freaking meant to get the damn ass experience if you aren’t bloody allowed on the motorways

04/25/2016 - 17:51 |
4 | 8
Martin Burns

In reply to by Samael

yet another reason ALL cars should be manual, forces one to pay more attention. I’m glad to hear the Germans teach driving properly (as i’d expect from Germany anyhow.) In the United States they never take you on the motorway either. driver education is horrific here. glad I went to advanced driving school after

04/25/2016 - 17:52 |
6 | 0
Cory Brayshaw

I hate the wheel thing, used to really wind me up and checking my mirrors every 40 seconds

04/25/2016 - 17:58 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Lots of bullshit in the Netherlands aswell, however I’m glad my instructor was clear in that half of the things I was learning I’d forget or SHOULD forget within the first week of actually driving myself.
And I never learned to ‘feed’ but learned more of the ‘slide’ method.

04/25/2016 - 17:59 |
0 | 0